“KAITY!” Mum is bellowing outside my door again the next morning. “Get out here! How dare you do this?”
I bet this is about the Christmas tree again. I bet it’s fallen over again and they’re all blaming me.
I open the door blearily. “What now?”
“Don’t you ‘what now’ me, young lady. How dare you write that on the bathroom mirror? Your sister is really upset.”
“What? Do what with the bathroom mirror?”
“Don’t play innocent again. You might think you can get away with the tree business, but you can’t deny this one. I just wish Seth or I had seen it before Pippa did, it’s really upset her.”
“What are you talking about?”
“And with my new lipstick, no less. Do you know how much that lipstick cost me?”
“Mum, I haven’t touched your lipstick. What are you talking about?”
Instead of replying, she grabs my wrist and pulls me across the landing and into the bathroom.
“This!” She gestures angrily at the mirror. “Don’t even pretend it wasn’t you.”
I stare at the mirror. There are words scrawled across it in bright red lipstick.
We wish you a scary Christmas and a crappy New Year. There are three kisses underneath it.
“I didn’t write that,” I say.
“Well, perhaps you could explain to me who did then, because it wasn’t me or Seth, and your sister’s writing isn’t that good yet, and I don’t think it was Harry, do you?”
I shrug.
“So that just leaves you, Kaity. Not only have you snuck into my handbag, stolen my new lipstick which I showed you last week, so you knew it was my best one, and ruined it, but you’ve made your sister cry as well. I hope you’re proud of yourself.”
“But I didn’t do it,” I protest.
“Then who did?”
“Maybe someone broke in and did it.”
“We have a burglar alarm, and nothing has been stolen. I don’t think someone broke in, without us knowing, just to write something nasty on the mirror, do you?”
“How am I supposed to know?”
“You’re the only person who could possibly have done it, Kaity. You and I both know that.”
“Maybe Seth did it.”
“Seth didn’t do it.”
“You don’t know that. He probably did it and now he’s blaming it on me.”
“Or, and a far more likely scenario I think, is that you did it and you’re trying to put the blame onto Seth because you don’t like him.”
“Why do you always take his side?”
“Because Seth isn’t that immature, Kaity.”
“I’m not immature!” I shout. “It’s not fair. I didn’t write this. I didn’t touch your lipstick!”
Mum sighs. “Help me clean it off.”
I take the cloth she hands me and swipe at it angrily. “You do believe me, don’t you?”
“Kaity, I... I guess so,” she says eventually.
It doesn’t feel like she believes me.
“Where’s Pippa?” I ask, biting my lip to try to stop the tears from spilling over.
“Seth’s making her breakfast in the kitchen. She was really upset, you know. She thinks Christmas is going to be scary now.”
“I didn’t do it,” I mutter again, turning and going back to my room before the tears fall.
It’s so unfair. I know that’s an immature thing to say, but I can’t think of any other way to describe it. I didn’t write that on the bathroom mirror, and just because I don’t know who did, it’s automatically my fault. That is not fair.